I’ve been using a tool to track how balanced I am across a variety of dimensions of my life. I’ve been using this for nearly six years and never once have I been completely in balance. It helps me directionally figure out where I should be spending my time. It’s called the Balance Wheel and I’m hoping it can help you too!
The balance wheel is a great way of stepping back and taking inventory of how my life is doing across a variety of dimensions. Of course, I had to go one step further and make two wheels for myself… a Balance Bicycle, if you will. One wheel focuses solely on business, the other on personal. Of course, because I’m me, I made it into an Excel sheet. Feel free to download and use.
It’s pretty easy to use. Just determine the dimensions you want to track and then rank your satisfaction on a scale from 1-7. This is a totally subjective exercise. Two people with nearly identical lives may rate their satisfaction completely differently. Likewise, a loved one may disagree with our subjective ratings.ie, it’s not perfect. It is, however, extremely useful to identify the areas that we feel, right now, are lacking in our lives. Obviously, this is something that is highly customizable. If you ever decide to do a balance wheel, you can design your own dimension and ranking system.
As part of my annual review, I fill out a new set of balance wheels to see how I currently feel about my life’s balance. I enjoy tracking them over the years to see where I’ve had growth and where I’ve been stuck. On that note, a tool like this represents an opportunity to start. The balance wheel doesn’t solve anything. It exists to open our eyes to opportunities for growth. The next step is taking action.
Hey future me
How are you going to change your time and focus based on the results you see? What has to change for a number to increase? What concrete steps are you going to take to improve a number? Which numbers are you ok to leave where they are?
Thanks to Aaron Burden on Unsplash for the beautiful photo of a water droplet balanced on a blade of grass.